XCOM: Enemy Beyond
by Cryokina
Summary: A history of the First Alien War and humanity's greatest struggle. Soldier and scientist alike will find themselves pushed to the brink by the horrors of a war unlike anything we have known. The fate of our species rests in the hands of the courageous men and women of the XCOM Initiative.
1. Prologue

The scout was small, a three-man craft. They were thrown out at likely locations by the hundreds, crewed by only the most common and least valued troops. The odds of one of them ever finding a viable target was near zero.

Even a one in a million chance pays off sometimes.

The scout was damaged by a chance encounter with a rogue asteroid, only reawakening when it was caught in the gravity well of a planet. It was too late for the grav-wave engines to activate, so the revived crew desperately tapped at unresponsive controls as they plummeted through the atmosphere towards the deserts of New Mexico. They did not survive the landing.

Their last panicked signals drifted through space, taking fifty years to reach their destination. The leaders received the data and changed their heading, moving towards a small blue world. They activated their engines and were gone.

A single basic ship, shattered into ten thousand pieces by an impact that turned sand to glass. This was humanity's first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. The Americans made a powerful effort to hide the truth. They retracted statements in newspapers, eliminated a few particularly stubborn witnesses, and hid the wreckage and bodies in the deepest facility they had, before slathering it in red tape and confidentiality. Hints of the truth leaked out over time, as they always do; sightings of unusual craft at this Area 51, eyewitness accounts of the incident, even a tape of the autopsy of one of the crew that had to quickly be doctored to the point that it appeared to be fake.

The technology of the 1940s was not at a level where good use could be made of the recovered materials. The power source and exotic alloys were sealed into containers, as no tool of the time could even gather information on them. The fragments of weapons were studied carefully, leading to advances in electronics. The crew were autopsied, to little avail. The ship's computers and power source were too badly damaged to be of any use.

No-one knew what this species was or what they wanted, but without a doubt there would be more of their kind. In the bowels of secret agencies and government offices the world over, plans were formed. It took fifty years for the project to be organised. Each one of sixteen member nations would donate materials, soldiers, scientists, and funding to the initiative, preparing for the day they would return.

That day, inevitably, arrived.

Log XC-1673: Communications intercepted in the vicinity of Munich, Germany, at 2134 hours local time on March 1, 2015.

_"-unusual meteor shower over Germany-"_

_"-citizens are being asked to stay indoors, possible danger from meteors-"_

_"Objects do not appear to be breaking up in the atmosphere, repeat-"_

_"-meteors have landed in streets of Munich, crowd is forming-"_

_"-artificial object, possibly downed satellite. We will-"_

_"Good God, it's opening, it's opening-"_

_"[screaming mixed with electronic noises]"_

_"Hilfe."_

CONTACT LOST

Initial sightings of disc-shaped craft and odd creatures had already put the council of nations to a vote, months before the Munich incident. Ten out of sixteen chose to activate the project. The German cavern network was enlarged. Soldiers were brought in from UN peacekeeping forces, from armies and private contractors the world over. The top scientists in the fields of biology, theoretical physics, from all disciplines, were recruited. Engineers the world over were hired. And so it was that the XCOM initiative thought they were ready in time for the first attack.

Four of Earth's finest sprinted to the Skyranger, a custom-built VTOL dropship. Geoff Armstrong, an American special ops soldier; Andrey Vinogradov, a hulking grunt from Russia; Akemi Murakami; a Japanese woman from a private military contractor; and Fernando Sanchez, an Argentinian demolitions expert.

They were the best of the best, but they had never been trained for this.

"Hello, Commander."

The man wore black. He sat in the shadows, his face obscured.

"In light of the recent... _extraterrestrial_ incursion, this council of nations has convened to approve the activation of the XCOM project. You have been chosen to lead this initiative, to oversee our first, and last, line of defense. Your efforts will have considerable influence on this planet's future. We urge you to keep that in mind as you proceed."

"Good luck, Commander."


	2. Devil's Moon

The four soldiers sat in the Skyranger, each nervous for different reasons.

"Do you have any idea what it is we're fighting?" Akemi asked the heavily-built Russian on her left.

"I don't know," Vinogradov said, "but I look forward to it." The Russian was a bear of a man, with a gravelly voice from years of smoking. He examined his gun again. It was bulky but well-designed, and it fit comfortably into his hand. "What is this weapon?" he asked. "It looks like the SG 550, but different."

"It's custom-made for us," Armstrong, the American, said. "Whoever these XCOM guys are, they're well-funded."

"You need to be well-funded," Sanchez said, "if you're going to fight off an alien invasion."

"Aliens, they told you?" Armstrong laughed. "Yeah, right. Probably just some militant nutjob set off a bomb."

"We weren't joking, Geoff," a voice said over the radio, making the American jump. It issued from speakers in the walls, just above their heads. "This mission is being designated Operation Devil's Moon."

"Cheery," Murakami muttered to herself.

"I'm Central Officer Bradford, and I'll be providing support in the field."

"Are we really facing... little green men?" Sanchez asked.

"Yes," Bradford said. "We believe there to be extraterrestrial hostiles in the area, though not many. We want you to clean up, take them out, and recover their bodies. There shouldn't be any civilians around. A German recon team went in ahead of us in a chopper, but we lost all contact with them half an hour ago."

"This is crazy," Armstrong said. "We're actually fighting aliens?"

"We believe so," a different voice said. German, female. "I am Doctor Vahlen, head of the research team. I will also be monitoring this mission."

"Get used to the idea fast, kid," Bradford said. "These aren't the first, and they won't be the last."

~

At the coordinates of the last transmission from the recon team, the Skyranger's cameras captured images of the wreckage of a helicopter on the ground.

"Central, this is Big Sky," the pilot said. "Looks like we've found the crash site."

"Roger, Voodoo 31," Bradford replied. "Any sign of activity?"

The pilot studied the footage for a moment before answering. "Negative, nothing's moving down there."

"Okay, set her down nearby."

~

The centre of Munich was a crater. Alien... things had rained down, in what the government had believed to be a shower of meteors. The surface of the road they landed on was cracked and pitted. The remains of the helicopter were nearby. A solitary German police car sat next to a statue of some great hero, lights flashing helplessly. There were a few more cars in the area, one of which had an enormous crater in its roof.

The team exited the rear ramp of the Skyranger, Murakami and Vinogradov watching for enemy fire as Armstrong and Sanchez advanced. They looked around at the vision of hell. Clouds of grey smoke obscured the full moon, pouring from raging fires in nearby buildings.

"Central, you getting all this?" Armstrong asked, looking around in shock.

"Copy that, Delta squad. First things first, get out of the open, and into cover. Whatever did this could still be out there."

Obeying, the soldiers quickly shuffled into cover behind the vehicles and a low wall of rubble.

"Central, I have movement," Vinogradov reported from behind a red Prius. "Thirty metres north of my position. Police vehicle." Ahead, the vehicle he referred to loomed out of the smoke. One of the alien devices had slammed into it, lodging into the roof and flipping it onto its side.

"Roger that, Delta-3. Proceed to the next vehicle for a better vantage point."

Vinogradov moved forward, but not to the source of the movement. He kept to the left, taking cover behind the car, so as to let someone else investigate.

"Delta-4, go check it out. There's no cover between here and there; you'd better double-time it."

Murakami did as she was asked, sprinting up to the vehicle. She looked around at the damaged side, only to find the green paint smeared with blood. "Holy hell..." she whispered.

"What do you see, Delta-4? Report."

There was a man under the vehicle, although, judging from its mass, there couldn't be much left of his lower half. He noticed her and began writhing, giving wet gurgles and staring at her with gouged out eyes. His face was smeared with red and purple, the two hard to distinguish by the light of the fires. It was only a few moments before he stopped moving. There was nothing she could do for him.

"Looks like one of the recon team, sir," Akemi said into her earpiece. She frowned at the nature of his wounds. He was crisscrossed by deep cuts, leaking blood that was dark as oil in this light. "It looks like something..."

There was a hiss of static from the radio, and a single, strained word.

_"Hilfe..."_

"Was that your man, Delta-4?" Bradford asked.

"Negative, sir," Akemi replied, ducking back into cover. "That's someone else."

The scream rattled through the radio again. _"Hilfe..."_

"Dr. Vahlen," Bradford said, "what's he saying?"

The doctor, who had been monitoring the frequencies back at HQ, replied. "He is saying, "Help me." That radio transmission is coming from somewhere north of the squad's current position; based on its strength, probably from inside a structure."

The team glanced as one at the looming shape of the warehouse in front of them. They knew where to go.

"Thank you, doctor. Delta, advance and infiltrate that building. Remember: stay in cover."

The team moved forwards as before, with caution. It started to rain; gently at first, but thunder soon roared in the distance. Sanchez ducked behind a bus shelter, covered with colourful posters for films and TV series, only to notice a pool of coagulated blood on the ground. "Ah, Central? I've got a lot of blood here."

"Roger. See where it's coming from."

Taking a deep breath, Sanchez turned the corner and looked into the shelter. There was a shape slumped in one corner, not moving. Lightning crackled, giving him a glimpse of a man with most of his organs hanging in a tangled mess from a jagged hole in his chest. The viscera was brown and rotting.

Fernando shuddered. "Central, I think I just found another one of the recon team... Or what's left of him." He thought for a moment. "It just doesn't make sense," he said, looking at the exposed organs again. The skin was dry and papery. "It looks like he's been dead for a week."

"Even more perplexing is the cause of death," Vahlen interjected, observing the same helmet-cam footage Bradford was. "It appears that he was eviscerated when something burst out of him from the inside."

Vinogradov thankfully chose this time to interrupt. "Sir, I have a visual on the object. Permission to approach?" One of the devices that had fallen from the sky was sitting in the open, in a small crater of pulverised paving stones.

"It's the only cover between you and that building. Permission granted," Bradford said reluctantly.

Vinogradov was silent for a minute, examining the smooth lines and curves of the object. "Talk to me, soldier. What are we seeing?" Bradford asked.

"I got no idea what this thing is," Andrey said, running his hand over one of the four curved plates that protruded on short arms from the central cylinder. "But I can confirm that it's no satellite."

"Roger."

Delta squad continued to advance until they were directly outside the warehouse. The rain was growing steadily worse. The thunder was approaching.

"Delta-1, there's a window in front of you. Let's go take a look."

Armstrong clambered up onto the ledge and peered through the murky glass. "In position," he reported. The interior was barren, with a few scatterings of boxes and crates, and a pair of yellow forklifts. "Looks clear."

"Then get in there, and get to cover."

Armstrong did so in the least subtle manner possible, by kicking through the window and jumping down in a shower of glass. The team winced, but nothing started shooting, showing that somehow Geoff hadn't alerted anyone that was inside.

"Delta-2, that door's in our way. Take it down."

"Solid copy," Sanchez replied with a grin. He sprinted to the door and kicked it open without pausing, before settling into cover behind one of the forklifts.

Vinogradov followed him, crouching behind a stack of barrels. Sensing movement in his peripheral vision, he swung out his rifle, only to see another soldier standing at the other end of the warehouse. The stranger held an old, grey assault rifle and a grenade. He was standing so that only his body was lit by the light hanging over him; his face was in shadow. A dry moan escaped his lips. _"Hilfe..."_

Worried, Vinogradov spoke into his radio. "Central, we have eyes on the target. He's armed."

Bradford wasted no time in making a decision. "Everyone, get into position nearby, but do not approach. Doctor," he continued, addressing Vahlen, "see if you can communicate with him. Tell him to drop his weapon."

"I will try," Vahlen responded. "Hallo. Können Sie mich hören? Wir sind hier um Ihnen zu helfen. Bitte lassen Sie Ihre Waffen fallen."

The man merely moaned again. _"Hilfe..."_

Vahlen sounded frustrated. "He appears to be in shock."

"Keep your eyes open, people," Bradford said, trying to analyse the feed from all four soldiers, looking for something out of place. "I don't like the looks of this."

The rain hissed down through gaps in the roof as the team made their way forward, sticking to cover all the way. Murakami jumped in through a window and joined the other three in inching their way forward.

"Delta-3," Bradford said after everyone else was in position, "move in and disarm him. Carefully." Obliging, Vinogradov slowly walked towards the German, rifle raised. The man twitched in place, limbs moving unnervingly. Andrey lowered his gun as he approached. Standing in front of the man, he moved the hanging light above him so as to see the German's face.

"My God," Vinogradov whispered. The man's eyes were glowing purple, the skin around them worn and stretched, hanging in folds. A purple halo also surrounded his head, leading off in one direction like a leash. Vinogradov glanced behind the man.

Sitting behind a crate was a small, humanoid creature. It had grey skin, almost like scales, and it squatted on four legs like a monkey. But this was no earthly creature; the head was enormous, with black oval eyes and no mouth. The eerie glow led to the creature's own head, where the purple nimbus played around its own features. It waved one long four-fingered hand slowly, and with a start Vinogradov realised this monster, this alien, was controlling the poor man.

The Russian had no time to share this revelation, as with one gesture from the alien, the German blew Vinogradov off his feet with a single shot from the rifle. A final gesture, and it made the man pull the pin on the grenade. Vinogradov, struggling to breath, coughing blood, had enough time to see the alien slip into the shadows before the grenade exploded in a shower of razor-edged shrapnel.

Vinogradov's vital signs flatlined. Before his teammates could react, there was a scuttling in the darkness, to the left of where Armstrong and Sanchez were huddled. The American was cut down by a flash of green fire from another grey alien, while on the other side, Murakami was nearly hit by a barrage of hissing plasma from a third. "I'm pinned down!" she screamed.

Bradford swore. In a matter of moments, two of XCOM's best soldiers had been killed. "Delta-2, you're being flanked! Find some better cover."

Sanchez ran for his life, sheltering behind some nearby barrels. He aimed his rifle at the alien who had Murakami pinned down. It was using some bizarre kind of pistol, fused to its wrist.

"Weapons free," Bradford said.

Sanchez fired, a swarm of bullets tearing into the enemy. It fell to the ground, flesh torn by a row of ragged holes across its abdomen. Murakami took the initiative and ran to better cover. She readied her rifle, but Bradford stopped her. "Throw a grenade at it!"  
>She pulled her grenade from her belt, tugged out the pin, counted to two, and threw it at the alien. The grenade beeped gently, and rolled to a halt at its feet. There was an explosion that tore apart both the alien and the stack of boxes he had been using for cover.<p>

Akemi looked at Sanchez and gave a nervous smile. Surely that would be all? Another alien appeared behind her and fired its strange weapon before Sanchez could even warn her. She barely had time to scream.

Sanchez sunk behind his cover and tried to stay calm. Shit, shit, don't panic, you'll get yourself killed. Remember your training.

"Damn it," Bradford said into his ear. "It's just you now, Sanchez."

Sanchez barely heard. His mind was on the brink of shutting down from fear.

"Sanchez, stay with me. We're nearly through this. We need to tip the odds back in our favour. Try and flank the enemy."

Sanchez ran as fast as he could, diving into a new position. Looking down the alley formed by crates and barrels, he had a clear shot at the enemy. He fired without waiting for Bradford's order, focusing on the hot lead pouring into the alien. Its head split open and it went down messily.

"Central..." Sanchez took a single, ragged breath. "I think that's it. It's over."

Bradford grimaced. "Roger that, Delta-2. Secure the bodies and return to the Skyranger for immediate extraction."

In the control centre, a recovered image from Vinogradov's camera flickered. It was distorted, out of focus, but it showed their enemy clearly. It was of the leader alien, the one that had done God knew what to that German. It hadn't been killed in the fighting. It was still out there.

~

The Skyranger brought Sanchez back to base, alone. The pilot didn't speak to him, and Sanchez didn't say a word. The Argentinian walked out in silence, leaving the bodies of his friends and enemies to be examined by the scientists.

~

"What are they?" Vahlen whispered, gazing in wonder at some of the recovered images of the alien troops.

Bradford shook his head. "Whatever they are, they nearly took out a squad of our best soldiers."

Dr. Shen, their resident expert on manufacturing, walked up to them. He was an elderly Asian man, with little hair and a face that was almost entirely hard-edged lines. "If you'll excuse me, doctors, the Commander is waiting in Mission Control." Bradford hurried away, leaving Shen with Vahlen.

"Their technology," Shen said, gesturing to one of the alien weapons, "is far beyond ours."

"Then I'd say we have our work cut out for us," Vahlen remarked.

~

Sanchez sat in the barracks. The other recruits were gathered around radios and televisions, discussing how the world was reacting to the incident in Munich. Some governments wouldn't take any position on the matter, others outright denied that extraterrestrials were involved. The bloggers and the Internet news sites had more or less acknowledged that this was a hostile first contact, and were scanning the web for any images of the aliens. The name "Sectoid" had come out of somewhere, and was already seeing use among the rookies.

"Hey, Sanchez!" He looked up. One of the rookies (MacLeod, the Scotsman, perhaps) held up a message from the Commander. "You've been promoted!"

Sanchez, suddenly full of energy, snatched the letter from him. It was caked in formality and procedures, certainly, but the message was clear. He had been promoted for performing well under fire, and he was now allowed to take a rocket launcher into the field.

Another rookie, Diaz, slapped him on the back. "Nicely done. Can't wait to see you use it!"

Sanchez, despite his melancholy mood, began to grin. "We're gonna blow those Sectoids away!" The rest of the barracks gave him a cheer.

~

Vahlen looked at the orders the Commander had given her. The research team was being ordered to take a look at the recovered alien materials before examining the weapon fragments. Apparently, the Commander was hoping they would lead to some new form of body armour, so as to make their soldiers less vulnerable.

The doctor looked at the Sectoid corpses with a sigh. She would have to wait for another day before dissecting them.

~

Sanchez took out a small box of matches. Vinogradov was a smoker. It seemed appropriate to use his matches for this. Lighting one, he ignited the wicks of the three candles in front of him. One for each of his fallen comrades.

"I didn't know you for long," Sanchez said, looking at the photographs he had pinned to the wall. They were all from the personal possessions of the trio. Vinogradov, as a child, proudly holding up a large haddock. Murakami, with her arm around a man in his twenties. Armstrong, with a child that must have been his son.

"I didn't know you for long," Sanchez repeated. "But you fought alongside me. We were brothers." He sighed. He didn't cry. His eyes were hard. "I will find that alien, the one who used that man as a puppet, and I will kill it. You will be avenged."

Sanchez turned and left, leaving the three candles to burn brightly in the dark.


	3. Silent Throne

Sanchez sat heavily in the base's cafeteria. He was still grim, in contrast to the excited soldiers around him, chatting about the latest news from around the world. He drank his thick soup slowly, tasting the flavours of potato and leek.

"Come on, cheer up!" Xenia Diaz said, sliding into a chair next to him. Diaz was from Argentina, like him. She was short, thin, but had a ceaseless energy that none of the others could match. She could imbibe drinks that would hospitalise some of her friends.

Sanchez looked at her and frowned. "You've got a rocket launcher!" she exclaimed. "How can you be unhappy?" Diaz mimed the action of loading the projectile and firing it, gesturing frantically as her imaginary rocket spiralled across the table. The missile reached some indeterminate target and Diaz threw out her arms in an explosion. "Kaboom!"

Cameron Ross sat down on his other side. "She's right, you know. You cannae keep moping around here; you'll ruin the atmosphere!" A Scottish man, Ross had been known for his sharpshooting in the Scottish armed forces before his recruitment.

Ross punched Sanchez in the shoulder. "We're XCOM now, lad: we have ta stick together. Tonight, we're gonna teach ya to play chess."

Sanchez gave him a quizzical look. "Why chess?"

"Because I'm no good at cards," Ross laughed, "and it's hard to find good beer in here."

~

Dr. Vahlen looked at the irregular patch of fabric. It glistened like metal, made of thousands of tiny microscopic links. This was the nanofibre material they had been researching for the last two days. The alien materials were stunningly complex; even with the resources available to XCOM, years of research could be carried out before they had a full understanding of their structure.

Research now was focused on the carbon nanotube weave found in several of the materials. Initial testing was showing a greater tensile strength than anything previously discovered. Vahlen lowered her goggles and gave the team performing the next test a thumbs-up.

The technician raised a light machine gun, borrowed from the barracks. He fired at the scrap of nanofibre, which remained undamaged despite a number of the bullets actually hitting it. Most of the bullets impacted on the wall behind it, digging a number of craters into the plaster.

"Dmitri!" Vahlen exclaimed. "We have a budget to consider!" She thought for a moment, while her assistant dropped the weapon and started to deliver a stammered apology. "To be honest," she interrupted, "I should have seen that flaw before we started the test. You're forgiven. Get someone to clean this up."

~

Dr. Shen looked at the request he had received from the science division. "What do they want such a volume of carbon nanotubes for?" he wondered out loud.

He looked around at the workshop that was being set up. Conveyor belts and robotic arms were being carried past him, while a furnace was moved carefully through the hectic mess. The engineering department hadn't started off with all its equipment in place, as the science department had. It would take quite a while for everything to fall into place.

He waved down one of the other engineers, who didn't seem to be doing anything particularly important. "Find out how we produce carbon nanotubes, and then order three of whatever machine does it."

~

Mission Control was a beautiful place, despite its spartan construction. The walls were decorated with a scattering of television screens as tall as a man, each displaying information on different countries. Technicians stood or sat in small groups, analysing the data flowing to them from every corner of the world.

The room was arranged in layers of desks and terminals, leading down to a pit in the centre. A dozen projectors mounted in the walls and ceiling created an image in mid-air, a transparent blue hologram of Earth. Different countries were marked with different colours. Australia was trying to reassure its people that the alien incident was a hoax, while the US was insisting that they had military might enough to crush any invaders. Scotland, newly independent from the UK, was panicking. It wouldn't be long before there were riots in the streets.

Bradford saw all this and more.

There was an urgent alert, a red flashing icon on the monitors. "Let's see it," Bradford said. The globe rotated, showing Bradford the reports of alien activity coming in from Los Angeles. Eye-witnesses were reporting creatures whose descriptions matched that of Sectoids.

"Assemble a team, and get them to the Skyranger," Bradford said. "I want Sanchez, Diaz, Ross-"

"Sir, more alerts are coming in!" a technician exclaimed.

Another red icon appeared over Brazil, and another over France. Both were under attack from small groups of aliens, and both were begging XCOM for help. Brazilian officials were promising monetary rewards, and the French offered a team of engineers.

Bradford swore. "Get me the Commander. This isn't going to be easy..."

~

Sanchez sat in the Skyranger again, though with different companions from last time. Diaz, Ross, and a woman from the Netherlands named Anna Bos were joining him on this mission.

"Never mind," Ross said, checking his rifle was loaded. "We'll have that game of chess tomorrow."

"If we live that long," Sanchez said.

CO Bradford spoke over the intercom, interrupting Ross' scathing comeback. "Right, team, you're being deployed to L.A. this time. This mission is being called Operation Silent Throne."

"Cheery," Bos muttered, and Sanchez shivered in memory of Murakami saying something similar only yesterday.

"We've had reports of alien activity in a run-down part of the city. If there are any civilians in the area, I hope they stay clear."

~

The Skyranger landed in a dilapidated area, on the banks of the river. The Los Angeles River flowed sluggishly past, reflecting the lights of the skyscrapers. It was dark, but the glow of the city outshone the stars. The team moved out as they had before; two covered the others, letting them advance.

"Before we move out," Bradford said, "let's see what's inside of that building." He referred to the nearby brick structure, squat and uninteresting. It was unremarkable in every way. It could have stood anywhere in the world and not seemed out of place. "Ross, you're closest."

"Roger that," Ross said, walking over to the abandoned building; some kind of house, perhaps? He peered through the window on the door, saw the computer on a bench inside. Someone had definitely been living here. The lights were still on, though the computer screen was black.

"Good. Now open the door, quietly, so you don't reveal your position to the enemy."  
>Ross gently pushed on the handle, letting the old door swing inwards. Nothing happened. Nothing moved but out-of-date newspapers rustling in the wind.<p>

"Okay, now take cover inside."

Cameron did so, moving up to the next doorway. It was wooden, with no window, and no way of telling what was on the other side.

"Right," Bradford said, thinking the situation through. "I want a man on the roof on that building. Sanchez, see if you can find a way up there."

Sanchez obeyed orders, clambering up a drain-pipe jutting from the side of the building. It was difficult; XCOM armour was not exactly lightweight, and the rocket launcher he carried only made things more difficult. He reached the rooftop eventually, running into cover behind a large vent.

He saw the enemy then; a pair of Sectoids, scuttling about. Both had the same odd weapons strapped to their wrists. One held a newspaper in apparent curiosity, studying it from every angle. "There they are," Bradford said. "Advance towards the enemy and get into cover. Don't attack until I give the word." As if the aliens had heard him too, they ran behind clusters of crates next to the waterfront.

Diaz ran into cover behind a portable toilet, which stood against the wall of the building. Bos found shelter behind a large shipping container on Diaz's left. There was a burst of hissing plasma, and Sanchez's vents were melted down to slag. Before the Argentinian could move, Diaz fired at one of the Sectoids with her assault rifle. The shots hit cleanly, and the Sectoid went down in a spray of muddy green fluids. Idly, Sanchez noted how the alien weapon shattered into fragments, despite not having been hit. Some kind of self-destruct mechanism?

Bos took a few shots at the other Sectoid, but it managed to duck under the stream of bullets. Ross kicked down the door and ran to one of the windows of the house. He aimed carefully and fired, killing the second Sectoid. "One down!" he said to Bos, who sighed and rolled her eyes. "We'll have killed a lot more before this is through, kid. Don't get cocky."

"The Commander will be assuming control now," Bradford said. "Remember, your armour can only withstand a couple of hits from their weapons. Keep your eyes open and your heads down. Good luck, soldiers."

No-one had ever actually seen the Commander. The leader of the XCOM project was surprisingly secretive. No-one even knew if the Commander was male or female. Some theorised that it was a robot, others thought their leader was some kind of sympathetic alien. Whatever the reason, the Commander never showed his or her face.

The commands that came over the radio were brief and to the point. "Continue forward. Stick to cover." The Commander was using some kind of modulator to disguise his/her voice.

"I'm telling you, guys, the Commander is a robot," Diaz said, crouching behind a stack of crates. "He sounds just like Soundwave!"

"Who?" Bos asked.

"Soundwave! From Transformers?"

Bos just shook her head.

"Didn't you have a childhood at all?" Diaz asked.

"Quiet," Sanchez hissed. "I have a bad feeling about this."

The team kept moving. The way ahead was partially blocked by shipping containers, their doors hanging off. Scorch marks blackened the tarmac, and piles of barrels and crates littered the ground. The soldiers were forced to take a narrow route through the crates, sticking to cover all the way.

"What did they do here?" Bos asked, prodding gently at an object with her foot. The alien devices were surrounded by them; greenish silhouettes of people, stretched out prone or curled into fetal positions.

"Anna, I don't know, and I don't care," Sanchez said, trying not to look at the victims. "Just keep moving."

"Sanchez," Ross said, quietly. "I think I have something." He pointed ahead, across open ground to where a large building, perhaps a warehouse, stood. Two Sectoids moved in bursts in the yellow lights. One of them must have noticed something, for it looked directly at Ross with its deep orange-black eyes before alerting its fellow and scampering into the building.

Bradford chose this moment to offer his advice again. "Commander, our veteran's rocket launcher should make easy work of the structure the aliens are using for cover. If we're lucky, it'll take out the aliens along with it. That is, if it hits."

Sanchez went first, crouching behind one of the boxes in this yard. There was little cover out here. The alien devices, whatever they were, had torn up the ground when they landed. Ross appeared on his flank. He took aim at one of the aliens, but the distance was too great, and the shot went wide. Ross swore briefly and went to reload.

Bos and Diaz advanced as well, sprinting into cover behind large pieces of rubble. Something glowed purple from inside the doorway. There was a green flash of plasma and Bos screamed. She clutched at her arm, sizzling and burning.

"Diaz! How bad is it?" Sanchez yelled into the radio.

"It's only a glancing blow," Diaz said, looking over Bos' arm. "She's burnt, but it's not too severe. She'll be fine once we get her back to a medic."

More plasma scorched the air over Sanchez and Ross' heads. "Ross, Diaz, cover me!" the Argentinian shouted, as he took the launcher from his back and prepared to fire it. Sliding the rocket into the tube, checking the weapon was correctly calibrated...

Diaz fired wildly at the entrance, forcing the aliens back inside. Sanchez loomed up only a few seconds later, heaving the rocket launcher onto his shoulder. Fire leapt from the end of the tube as the rocket took flight, a shining spear of flame. It crossed the open space in a heartbeat, and detonated inside the structure. The aliens' screams were barely audible over the sound of the explosion. The entire front of the building was torn open in a conflagration, the door flung far away, the windows in a thousand pieces. It was a small wonder that the building did not collapse, but it stood still, looking for all the world like a cross-section of itself.

Sanchez lowered the launcher. Despite everything, that had been enjoyable. "See?" he said to Diaz. "Told you I was gonna blow those Sectoids away."

"Good work, strike team," Bradford said. "Let's get back to the Skyranger-"

"If I may, Commander?" Dr. Vahlen interjected. She had clearly been monitoring the entire mission, as she had before. "The labs are on high alert. Teams are standing by for orders. We can begin researching the newly recovered artifacts immediately."

"She's a little eager, isn't she?" Ross muttered. "The blighters aren't even cold, and she already wants to cut them open."

Sanchez had no idea what Vahlen wanted. These aliens were no more special than the previous ones. "Let's get going."

Ross offered his arm to Bos. She took it and, with his help, the four started to walk back to the Skyranger as the moon shone overhead.

~

"How long did the doc say you'd be in for?" Ross asked, as he and the other two members of the strike team stood at Bos' bedside in the barracks. She was up and moving just fine, but her arm was bandaged and in a sling.

"Only a few days!" Bos said with a grin. "It's crazy. That kind of burn would have put me out of action for weeks back in the force, but here the medics can patch you up in no time at all."

One of the other recruits walked in, carrying a handful of documents. "Cameron Ross? Xenia Diaz?" The man was a native English-speaker, and he stumbled over Diaz's forename.

"That's us," Ross said. "What is it?"

"Promotions are in order," the recruit said, smiling. "Courtesy of the Commander."

~

"Commander, we have an incoming transmission from the Council."

The Commander sat in the shadows. Almost a mirror image of the spokesman for the Council of Nations, nothing could be seen of the tactician's face. A slight nod was given, and Bradford brought the transmission onto the screen.

"Hello, Commander," the voice said. It was the same man who delivered every transmission, his rumbling deep voice adding weight to every word. "We wish to congratulate you on your most recent victory. We realise you were faced with a difficult decision in responding to the various requests for assistance. Regardless, you performed admirably. As agreed upon, the reward for your actions has been granted."

Bradford looked at one of the smaller screens. Three new arrivals were being shipped in tomorrow; three of the US' top scientists. The Council kept its word.

"Farewell, Commander. We hope that you are met with continued success."

The transmission faded to black. The Commander raised a hand, and signalled for Bradford to leave. He did so without question; the Commander was the one holding the entire project together. The Commander had authority enough that orders were never questioned. Without that kind of leadership, Earth wouldn't stand a chance.


	4. Shattered Fall

Bradford made his way back to Mission Control. One of the main screens now showed something new. It was something the engineers had rigged up. They called it the "Doom Tracker". It was a bar with sixteen segments, one for each Council member nation. If a member were to leave, the segment would turn red. If more than eight left, the project wouldn't have enough funding to continue.

So this is how we watch the end of the world get closer, Bradford thought. A progress bar.

"The local satellite network has come online," a technician reported. "We can now begin scanning for activity."

Bradford nodded. The holographic globe whirred into life and pulsed with activity, being fed data and news from across the world. The tiny virtual moon spun in orbit, rotating slowly. For now, everything was calm.

~

"Commander," Vahlen said to the screen, "we have made a breakthrough." One could hear the excitement in her voice.

The Commander watched impassively from her room (at least, Vahlen suspected their leader to be female) above Mission Control. It was the sixth of March, and little alien activity had been recorded in the last few days. "Go on," the modulated voice said.

"We have replicated some of the alien materials on a large scale," the doctor said. "It is possible for us to manufacture a carbon nanotube vest that would afford our men greater protection in the field."

"Do it," the Commander said without hesitation. "Every soldier we lose is another blow to the project. I don't want to lose any more."

"What should my team study next?" Vahlen asked.

"The corpses," the Commander said. "I know you've been looking forward to their dissection." It must have been Vahlen's imagination, but she thought she saw the ghost of a smile on her shadowy face.

The connection closed, leaving Vahlen alone in the labs.

~

Vahlen put on the helmet of the hazmat suit, clipping the seals into place. The Commander was right. She had been looking forward to this for some time. She was a biologist, after all.

She stepped into the autopsy chamber as several of her team watched from outside the plexiglass walls. One of the Sectoid bodies they'd recovered was splayed out on the table before her. Next to it were her tools; scalpels, saws, and other painful-looking instruments.

She picked up one scalpel, feeling its weight. "The squeamish among you may wish to look away now," she said. To her surprise, not one of the assembled staff hid their gaze.

"Very well," she said. "This is Doctor Vahlen, making the first incision into the body."

She slid the blade into the cold flesh. They had refrigerated the bodies as soon as they were recovered. It was unlikely any local microbes would feed on the flesh, but they couldn't afford to take the chance.

The chest was opened in a brief spray of bile-green liquid. Some of it had already been sampled and analysed; it was believed that this served as a blood analogue, though obviously not identical in properties to human blood. It congealed far less easily, for one thing.

She opened the abdomen and frowned. This was not a conventional organism. Each organ, small bundles of green and dull orange (she tentatively identified heart, stomach and liver analogues) had its own compartment. They were separated from each other by walls of rigid tissue.

"Organs divided into individual compartments," she reported to her colleagues. "How could that have evolved naturally?" she wondered. "Unless, of course, it didn't."

~

The satellite drifted in geosynchronous orbit, the one altitude where it could remain stationary above a certain area of Earth. Stationary is, of course, a relative term.

There was activity in the atmosphere far below. A disc of chrome and neon glided over the wilderness, leaving a thick trail of ionised particles. It was no engine and no ship that humans had ever manufactured. The satellite beamed these images directly to XCOM headquarters, where Bradford rushed to a terminal to look.

"Get those up on the screen!" he ordered a nearby technician, who rushed to comply.

The images clearly showed what must have been an alien craft. It had their peculiar aesthetic of rounded angles and pale green lights. It was travelling slowly, as if it was scanning the area.

Bradford glanced at the location and paled. "Check those coordinates!" he said. "They can't be right..."

But they were. The first sighted alien vessel was only kilometres from XCOM HQ.

~

Mathilda Petit, a Canadian pilot, ran through the hangar. "Scramble interceptors," machine-like voices calmly repeated into the intercom. All around her, there was panic. People were running, preparing her jet for takeoff and readying the other one, in case support was needed. She hoped it wouldn't be.

The Raven was a fine piece of engineering. They had combined aspects from some of the most advanced jets in the world into one vehicle. It was unreasonably fast, highly agile, and heavily armed.

She climbed into the jet, closing the cockpit over her head. She checked her instruments, made sure that her flight suit was sealed, went through all the usual checks while her plane was raised into the launch position. A Raven Interceptor wasn't a Skyranger; it couldn't just take off vertically.

The plane tilted backwards halfway to vertical, and she got ready to ignite the engines as the metal hatch above her eased open. The sky outside was a deep shade of blue. She took a deep breath and thumbed the switch. The engines gave a roar and she leaped into the sky on a column of fire.

Her target was worryingly close at this point, and it was only a few minutes before she reached it. It was just as the satellite had shown; the classic UFO shape, a disc of silver metal decorated with colourful lights. It fired at her as she spiralled in pursuit, the same kind of weapons used by their ground troops, but on a larger scale.

The plasma scorched her wings, burning away paint and metal. It only took her a few missiles in reply before something broke inside. Screeching and trailing smoke, the UFO went down hard, ploughing through a forest, smashing trees like twigs. Feeling rather pleased with herself, Mathilda turned around and headed back to base. The first human to shoot down a flying saucer: they would have to give her some kind of medal for that.

~

"This is Voodoo-37. Confirmed kill. Repeat, confirmed kill. Bogie 001 is down. Over."

Mission Control, packed with worried scientists, technicians and engineers, broke out into applause. They had not been expecting victory to come so easily. Bradford and Vahlen gave cheers, while Dr. Shen nodded approvingly.

"We did it," Vahlen said, tears in her eyes. "I cannot wait to examine the remains."

Bradford smiled and turned to one of the technicians. "Let's get it up on screen," he said.

The technicians fiddled with a few controls, and a video feed from one of their satellites appeared, projected in front of the holographic globe. It showed the forest in Bavaria where the ship had been brought down. A large portion of it was on fire. The ship had flattened a path through the trees, only stopping after dozens had been toppled.

"Well," Bradford shrugged, "a few environmental catastrophes are inevitable in this job. We'll have those put out as soon as this is cleared up. Enhance."

The view zoomed in, again and again, until the ship was visible at the centre of the smoke cloud. The satellite highlighted it, and programs immediately started analysing it. Most shockingly, apart from one gaping hole in the flank, it was intact.

"Still in one piece?" Bradford said to himself. "What is that thing made from?"

Vahlen shook her head in disbelief. "It must be at least an order of magnitude more resilient than anything we've managed to create."

"I'll assemble a strike team at once," Bradford said. "We'll need our best soldiers on this one."

~

"There's been a recent donation of some more advanced armour," Bradford said, having met the team in the armoury. "From now on, you all get to wear helmets."

"Isn't this really something you should have given us sooner?" Diaz asked, picking up a hard-edged helmet, covered in angles.

"The budget didn't stretch to cover it before," Bradford admitted, scratching the back of his neck.

~

Sanchez sat in the Skyranger, with Diaz on his right. She was practically jumping with excitement, clutching the shotgun she had been given for her actions in the last mission. Across from him was Ross, looking as cheerful as ever; no, more so, now that he had a sniper rifle.

The fourth member of their team was new; Anastaysia Ivanova, a Russian woman that allegedly was the finest soldier in her platoon. She didn't look it; unlike most other XCOM recruits, Ivanova was thin, and didn't look terribly strong.

"I'm lucky," she said with a smile. "My squad was once flanked by some anarchists with a tank. When they fired, however they'd done it, they had managed to mess up the loading process so badly that the shell just detonated in the firing chamber. Blew the turret clean off, made a hell of a mess." She chuckled. "That's how my legend got started."

"The reminiscing can wait, Ivanova," Bradford said over the speakers. "You're all aware that we splashed a UFO not far from the base. We're doing our best to keep civilians out of the area. Satellite's picked up something moving in the wreckage, so be prepared. Any questions?"

"Just one," Ross said. "What are you calling this one?"

"Just a moment..." Bradford said, shuffling through papers. "Ah, Operation Shattered Fall."

"Awesome," Ross said with a grin. "We need more cool names for these things. Who comes up with them, anyway?"

"I... uh... I'm actually not sure," Bradford said. "Remind me to look into that."

~

The Skyranger touched down on a hill, the rear ramp opening with a hiss of hydraulics. The squad sprinted out into the clearing, weapons at the ready. The ground around them was blackened and scorched, the grass burned away in places. The devastation continued in a wide track to the north, a track formed by felled trees like bowling pins.

"This is Big Sky. Strike team is deployed," the pilot reported.

"Good job, Big Sky," Bradford said. "Strike team, we want you to infiltrate the downed UFO. Try not to damage it any further. Remember, satellites have detected movement down there, so we expect survivors. Good luck."

"Infiltrate?" Diaz laughed. "I don't really do infiltrating."

~

The team advanced cautiously. Most of the trees had burnt out; they had been lucky enough to splash the craft in an area of incessant rain. It was raining now, a light drizzle that filtered down from the sky and coalesced on leaves, where it dripped down gently. It was hard to see very far ahead, but it was easy enough to find the wreck. They just had to follow the trail of destruction.

The craft had blazed its way clean through the forest. The rain hissed on the fires burning in its wake. Sanchez led the four soldiers, directing them into cover behind fallen trees and chunks of debris. Some parts of the craft littered the ground, shining chunks of alien metal.

Sanchez climbed up a hill, moving into cover behind a tree that was still standing. "UFO in sight," he reported back to HQ. The ship was in front of him, still on fire. A large hole yawned in one side of the hull. A pair of Sectoids rambled around in front of it, scanning the area for movement.

"We have contact," he said into his radio quietly. "Everyone, move up. We'll take them by surprise."

His team obeyed, filtering through the trees and taking cover behind boulders and logs. "Ross, find high ground. I want you to take them out from a distance."

"Acknowledged," Ross said. He moved as slowly as he could to a small hill, and lay down behind one of the fallen trees. He readied his sniper rifle, peering through the scope at the aliens. "I have a shot at one of the blighters."

"Take it," Sanchez said.

Ross shifted slightly as he adjusted his aim. There was a single sharp crunch as a twig snapped underneath him. The Sectoids' heads whipped around to stare at him. The look of horror on Ross' face could not be adequately described. He fired the shot, clipping one Sectoid's shoulder. It squealed, but limped into cover nearby, as did its comrade.

"Shit," Ross said. He narrowly ducked below the bolts of plasma that flew at him. They set fire to the tree he was using for cover, etching holes into the trunk.

Diaz responded as she was trained. With Ivanova laying down covering fire, she sprinted the short distance to the wreckage the injured Sectoid was sheltering behind. Before it could react, she filled its face with shotgun pellets. She ducked down before its companion could respond. Ivanova took down the remaining alien with a few shots to the chest.

"Hostiles neutralised," Diaz reported, reloading.

"Excellent," Bradford said. "Advance to the ship, and be cautious."

Sanchez nodded. "You heard the man. Let's move."

They continued onwards, walking towards the ship. It was listing slightly to one side, smoke gushing from the hole in the hull. Sanchez ran a hand over the metal. It was warm to the touch and smooth as silk.

"Diaz, you go in first," Sanchez said. "Ivanova and I will follow. Ross, you stay back and snipe anything you see." Sanchez frowned. "That is, if you don't alert it."

Ross threw up his hands in exasperation, but said nothing. He took cover behind a piece of metal debris outside the ship, where he had a wide field of view.

Diaz made her way forward nervously. There was a door of sorts into the ship, a curved gap in the hull with a shimmering blue-green field inside it. A similar field made up four large, curving portions of the hull. "Uh, Command?" she asked. "What am I meant to do here?"

"Just touch it," Bradford said. "We've observed the aliens walking through it."

Diaz reached out a hand and touched the door. Whatever it was made from, it was cold. The field rippled like water at her touch, but provided no resistance. Diaz stepped inside, half-realising that she was the first person to board a UFO.

She corrected herself. The first of her own free will, yes, but not the first. The aliens had taken many civilians captive. She didn't want to know what was being done to them.

The interior was poorly lit, the overhead lights flickering on and off. It was mostly one large room, built in a similar style to the rest of the alien technology: rounded edges, shining chrome, flashing lights. Four mounds of complicated machinery rose around the room, surrounding a central platform.

Something caught Diaz's eye. Inside the craft, on the floor, there was an orange crystal. It sat there, completely incongruous, motionless. Diaz was about to say something about it to the others when it began to rise.

Stunned, she watched as metal tubing and plates simply folded into shape from nowhere in an orange glow, spreading out from the crystal like origami sculpted by gods. It formed a humanoid figure of metal in two parts. The upper half floated above the lower, separated by nothing but air. The crystal protruded from the torso, the glow so bright it was almost painful to look at. The head, all elegant curves, gazed at her as it raised a rifle. Diaz ducked back around the corner as a barrage of plasma hissed on the alien metal wall.

"Base?" Diaz desperately said into her earpiece. "I have an unknown alien contact. Armed!" She risked another glance, and saw that the thing was taking cover behind one of the mounds; a computer, perhaps.

"Our readings can't be right!" Vahlen exclaimed. "If they were... That's a being of almost pure energy."

Bradford swore. "Diaz, I have no idea what that means, but keep the hell away from it."

"The readings coming from that creature are like nothing I've ever seen!" Vahlen said. Diaz didn't know what the numbers streaming down her HUD meant, but they were clearly panicking the doctor.

"You can study it when it's dead, Doctor," Bradford said. "Let's take that thing down."

Diaz noticed movement from the corner of her eye. She rolled instinctively, a bolt of plasma flying over her head. The being stalked out from behind the cover, a light rifle clung to its chest. Its legs, she noted, had a few more joints than those of a human. She fired her shotgun at it, but the blast impacted to its side.

Ross' voice sounded in her ear. "Diaz. Duck, now."

Diaz almost threw herself to the floor. The bullet from Ross' sniper rifle whistled over her helmet, hitting the bizarre alien in the chest. It gave an electronic scream, dissolving into orange and grey dust. In a few seconds, there was nothing left.

"Hell yeah!" Ross said, approaching Diaz with Sanchez at his side. "Who's the badass now, Sanchez?"

Sanchez shook his head and laughed. "That was a fine shot, I'll give you that." He bent down to examine the remains of the alien. "Nothing left of the bugger," Ross said.

There was the sound of gunfire in the distance. "Four hostiles!" Ivanova shouted into the radio. "Need backup!"

Sanchez reacted quickly. "They're on our left. Diaz, you go through the UFO. I want you to flank them. Ross, stay with her. I'll go support Ivanova."

~

Ivanova was pinned down by a hail of fire from four Sectoids. Resilient as the alien alloy was, it wouldn't be able to withstand much more of this. She leaned out of cover briefly and fired a few shots at the enemy, but they went wide.

Sanchez rounded the corner and, dodging the plasma fire, leaped into cover behind another piece of cover not far from Ivanova. "Damn it, I shouldn't have left you unsupported," he said.

"No, it's fine," she said. "I could have taken these guys on." Sanchez couldn't tell whether she was being sarcastic or not.

Diaz crept through the ship, silently deactivating another door. The Sectoids were right in front of her. "In position," she said quietly.

"Got it," Sanchez nodded. "Now!"

Diaz appeared from inside the ship, taking down one alien with a blast of her shotgun. The Sectoids reeled, knowing they had been flanked, and tried to find new cover. This gave Sanchez the opening he needed to annihilate another one with his LMG.

The remaining two Sectoids scurried away behind a tree trunk. Ross was lining up a shot when the most peculiar thing happened. One of them began to glow purple and, reaching out a hand, seemed to take control of his comrade. The Sectoid jumped over the cover, head glowing purple, and fired his plasma pistol. The shot hit Ross in the leg, burning through the armour there and into the meat of his thigh. He gasped in pain, almost dropping his weapon.

"Goddamn psychics," Sanchez muttered through gritted teeth, recognising the abilities of that alien he had seen in Munich. He fired at it, but the shots seemed to be deflected to one side. How were his men meant to fight such power?

Ivanova raised her rifle and fired. The shot travelled a great distance and hit, not the psionically toughened Sectoid, but his ally in cover. The Sectoids screamed, the feedback from the death of one overloading the mind of the other. Both dropped to the ground, dead. The team let out sighs of relief.

"Good job, Strike One," Bradford said. "Return to the Skyranger immediately. Cleanup crews are already on their way."

~

The bar in the barracks was crowded. Rookies were gathered around, listening to Diaz tell stories of her field operations. To hear her tell it, Sanchez thought, you'd think she'd shot every one of those aliens herself.

Ivanova sat next to her, trying to lose herself in a small glass of wine. She was obviously uncomfortable with Diaz's sheer energy and movement. She shrank back and smiled nervously whenever the story involved her.

Ross' leg hissed when he moved. He had pulled up the leg of his trousers to show the others what the medics had done for him. He wore what was almost an exosuit; a metal framework wrapped around his leg that allowed him to walk, if he was careful. He, too, told stories. He had named the creature an Outsider, and boasted of how only he could have made that shot.

"They say it'll be a few days before I get back into the field," Ross grinned. "It's amazing, what they can do around here."

"It is indeed, my friend," Sanchez said. "Ever going to have that game of chess with me?"

"Nah," Ross grinned. "Not tonight. Tonight, we drink."

"I thought you didn't like the alcohol here?"

"Eh, it's better than nothing."

They clinked their glasses together in a silent toast.

~

"These readings," Vahlen said. She was in the labs, looking over the recordings obtained from the strike team's encounter with what they were calling an "Outsider". To her, the name seemed derogatory. Surely such an awe-inspiring creature, a being of pure energy, deserved some prouder title?

Dmitri, her assistant, stood next to her. "What about them, Doctor?"

"They provide us with a wealth of information on this being, Dmitri," Vahlen said. "We had almost exhausted what we could learn from the Sectoid corpses, and now a new alien appears. Will they all be so informative? More importantly, will they all be so easily defeated?"

"I cannot say, Doctor," Dmitri said. "I need to return to my analysis of the Sectoid blood analogue."

Vahlen waved him away. There had to be a way that they could obtain more information. Not just on the Outsider, but on the Sectoid, and whatever else they would encounter.

"What if," she muttered, an idea forming in her mind. "What if we could capture one _alive_?"


	5. Swift Justice

"Commander," Bradford said. "The Council has requested a word."

The Commander turned from one of the computer screen, illuminated from behind. He had been looking at analysis of the recovered images of the Outsider. As ever, no details of his (at least, Bradford was confident that the Commander was male) face could be seen.

The Council representative appeared on the large screen in the Situation Room, over Mission Control. "Hello, Commander. We require your assistance with a unique matter. We expect that you will give it the same level of attention as you would for any other project objective."

The Commander nodded silently. He had been expecting some interference from the Council during the project, but not so soon after it had begun. It had only been two weeks since first contact had been so violently made.

"One of the captives abducted by the aliens has somehow managed to escape. If you could retrieve this woman, she may have valuable insight into the aliens' operation. We'll transmit the coordinates now. Farewell, Commander. We know you will not disappoint us."  
>The screen went dark, and the XCOM logo shone in his place. <em>Vigilo Confido.<em>

The Commander shook his head. "If I didn't need their funding..." He turned back to his computer. "I want a team en route in twenty minutes."

Bradford turned to leave, but a gesture from the Commander stopped him in his tracks. The mysterious figure seemed to consider Bradford for a few moments.

"Bradford," he said, in that artificial voice. "What do you know about the year 1962?"

Bradford considered for a second. The Commander would sometimes ask obscure questions like this in quiet moments. He assumed he was being tested.

"Ah... It was the Cold War. JFK was president, _Dr. No_ was released, Bob Dylan made his debut. Is there anything in particular?"

"So they didn't tell you?" The Commander paused, then chuckled. "Of course. Why would they?" He turned around. "We both have work to do."

Bradford left, puzzled by the cryptic phrases. _What was so important about 1962?_

~

Her name was Anna Sing. She had a normal life. Decent job, good friends, a nice house. At least, she had all of that until the aliens had come. They had to be aliens; they travelled in flying saucers. They had taken her, taken everyone that had been in the area. She had only been in Munich on a holiday! Why did she have to be in that particular area at that particular time?

She remembered what had happened. She woke up when they took her out of the pods they had crammed all the humans in, and freed her from the green web she was coated with. She saw a beeping red light on the side of the coffin-like container, and guessed that it was somehow broken. A monster that looked like a cross between the Incredible Hulk and Bane had grabbed her by the arm, dragging her through a maze of silvery corridors.

It had brought her down an ramp to the outside, where people were being loaded into coffins like hers. The monster waved an arm at its fellows, gesturing to her and making ape-like noises. Distracted by the animated discussion it had with another alien, it had loosened the grip on her arm. She slipped free and ran into the woods, stumbling on roots and whipped by branches. The aliens had been too large and clumsy to follow her.

Anna made it into a city. For whatever reason, the aliens had brought her to Brazil. She didn't know where exactly she was, she didn't speak the language, and she didn't have any money. She understood the pictures in the newspapers well enough, though. The world was suffering an alien incursion. It wasn't just Munich; it was random, unpredictable locations across the planet. Los Angeles, Lyon, a forest near Berlin.

Now she was running. She knew they were following her. All that kept her going was a vague, animal urge to stay alive at all costs. As she ran, she took a bite out of a bag of chips she had stolen from a store. She turned down an alleyway, clambering over an old pile of crates. One of them had seen her, only half an hour ago. They knew she was in the city, and now night was falling. She wouldn't be able to run for much longer.

She tried not to think about the things that were following her. Snakes in human skin. They were fast, so fast. Every shadow started to look like their shape, and every silhouette in a window seemed like another monster in an ill-fitting suit. She kept running. It was all she could do.

~

The research labs were all hustle and bustle, samples being moved and results analysed. Vahlen's mind hummed along with the banks of computers. They had gained every scrap of knowledge they could from the Sectoid corpses, and her teams had moved on to analysing the fragments of alien weaponry.

As she had feared, these invaders were far beyond them in every field. Their ground troops had been genetically engineered to the point that they were carbon copies of one another. Now, she could see that their weapons were far beyond any human equivalent.

From the parts her team had managed to reassemble (the weapons self-destructed on the death of the wielder), and from after-action reports of their own soldiers, it seemed the aliens were using some sort of plasma weaponry. Vahlen felt a little surprised by this. She had been half-expecting the invaders to use some sort of lasers. It would have fit well with their stereotypical "grey" appearance.

She looked up as Bradford entered the room, her meandering train of thought brought back to reality. "A mission launches in a few minutes," he said. "I don't suppose you have anything for our troops?"

Vahlen grinned. "Actually," she said, "I do." She picked up a six-inch cylinder of silver metal, capped by greenish glass. "We were lucky. Most of the aiming mechanism on one of the alien weapons was intact. We took it apart, studied it, and rebuilt it into this." She tossed it to Bradford, who caught it in mid-air. He held it up to the light, looked through the glass core. It was surprisingly heavy, he noted.

"We designed it to be an improvement on a conventional aiming device. Could one of our snipers make use of it?"

Bradford nodded. "They certainly could. Does it have a name?"

"The Specially Calibrated Optical Precision Enhancement."

Bradford went over the name in his head. "So... the S.C.O.P.E."

Vahlen blushed. "My idea of a joke." She picked up a metallic vest from another bench. "These are the nano-fibre vests we designed from the recovered materials. They use a fascinating weave of minute tubes that I don't have time to explain." Vahlen handed Bradford the vests. "Hopefully, they should stop injuries."

~

Leaning outside his fast-food store, Bernard contemplated his life. It had been difficult to keep this place running of late, what with the recession and all. His little restaurant was having trouble turning a profit.

A man in a dark suit with sunglasses walked up to him. He held out a blurred photograph of a woman wearing grey, who seemed to be running away from the photographer. "Have you seen this woman?" he hissed, in perfect but strangely accented Portuguese.

Bernard thought. She looked a lot like that homeless woman who had taken some food from his store earlier. "Yeah, I think so. She went down the alleyway out back, about twenty minutes ago."

The suited man nodded his head. "Thank you for your help." He strolled away oddly. Bernard watched, unable to place exactly what was so discomforting about his appearance. Then it struck him. When the man had bowed his head, his sunglasses had slipped down his nose slightly. (Who wears sunglasses at six o'clock in the evening? he wondered.) Bernard had briefly seen the man's eyes before he pushed them back up, and what he had seen made him shudder.

They were not human eyes. They were green, with vertical lines for pupils. They were the eyes of a snake.

~

The squad checked and rechecked their equipment in the Skyranger. Sanchez was once again in command. On his right was Cameron Ross, the team's sniper, who was enjoying fiddling with the settings on his new S.C.O.P.E. In front of him was Anna Bos, who was showing talent with medpacks, and on her right was Xenia Diaz, their slightly unhinged assault specialist. Ivanova, who had fought alongside the team at the crash site, had been relieved to find out that she wasn't going on this mission.

"What's the target this time, Brad?" Diaz asked, knowing that he would be listening. "Abductions? Another crashed ship?"

Bradford sounded stern over the loudspeakers. "My name is Bradford, Diaz, not Brad. We've intercepted a signal indicating that an abductee was able to escape alien captivity." Here, he paused, to let the likelihood of this occurring sink in. "We have a limited window of opportunity to attempt an extraction."

Bos gave a curt nod. "And the name of this operation?" she asked.

"Operation..." Bradford could be heard shuffling through papers. "Operation Swift Justice."

Sanchez smiled. "I like it."

~

The Skyranger touched down in the outskirts of Salvador, a city on Brazil's northeast coast. It was night-time, the sun having set over the horizon several minutes ago. It got dark quickly here. The team advanced out of the Skyranger and surveyed the area. The target was somewhere around this square, a small park of sorts with neatly mowed grass and perfectly sculpted bushes. A fountain took pride of place in the centre. There weren't any people on the streets; the Brazilian government had issued a warning about a gas leak in the area.

The team spread out, taking defensible positions behind rubbish bins and parked vehicles. "Ross," Sanchez said. "Get behind that pick-up truck on the right." He gestured to a battered old Ford, one door hanging open. Ross nodded and hunkered down behind the door.

"Diaz," he continued, "take the central route, around the fountain. I'm going down the left path. Bos, you cover me." Strategy decided, the strike team advanced.

As he crouched behind a bench, Sanchez spotted movement. He risked a glance, only to see a man in a black suit walking slowly along the street, back turned to them. "Civilian," he said to the team. "I'll get him out of the area before he gets himself killed. Bos, keep an eye out."

Sanchez stood out of cover and cautiously walked towards the man. Something about this didn't feel right to him. There was something peculiar about the man's movements. He was very tall and thin, and he didn't seem familiar with how to walk. He moved one leg at a time, slowly, as if he had to think about each movement.

When he was about ten feet away, Sanchez decided to call out to the man. "Sir?" he said. The man's head whipped around faster than the blink of an eye. Sanchez only had enough time to register that this was no civilian before it spat a ball of black liquid at him. He staggered backwards, his torso coated in the thick slime. It steamed, fumes drifting upwards. His helmet's filters weren't designed for this kind of attack, and he soon found himself breathing in the noxious gas.

It burned his throat, worming its way into his lungs and irritating his eyes. Sanchez gasped for air, blinking away the tears forming in his eyes. "Poison!" he shouted into his mike. "Hostile!" The man quickly sprang away, moving like some kind of bizarre frog. It opened its mouth wider than any human could and hissed. It raised some sort of alien weapon. Unfortunately for the monster, he had jumped onto the fountain. Diaz leaned out from behind him and blew a gaping wound in his side with her shotgun. The alien looked momentarily surprised before it flopped from its perch and slid to the ground.

A cloud of black-purple gas rose from the corpse. Wisely, Diaz edged away from it. Bos sprinted over to Sanchez, who was coughing desperately. She wrenched his helmet from his head and took a pause to assess his condition. It didn't look good. The poison was causing fits of coughing, and his skin was developing an unhealthy pallor.

"Fernando!" Bos said, clicking her fingers in front of his eyes. She drew her medkit from her belt. Although it contained an all-purpose concoction of antivenoms, antibiotics and compounds of stunning complexity, she had no idea if it would work on an alien toxin. "Take this!" Sanchez stopped coughing for long enough that she could pour the chemicals into his throat. He struggled, but managed to swallow most of the liquid.

"For God's sake," Sanchez spluttered. "Not again..." His eyes closed, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

"That alien is unusually human in its appearance," Vahlen said through the radio. "They could be using it as an infiltration unit of some kind. I'd recommend recovering a body for further-"

"Vahlen!" Bos snapped. "Shut the hell up for five minutes."

To everyone's shock, Vahlen stammered briefly before falling silent. Sanchez lay still, and Bos saw that colour was returning to his face and his breathing was becoming more regular.

"HQ?" Bos said into her mike. "Sanchez was poisoned. He's gonna make it, but he's in no shape to fight. I'm bringing him back to the Skyranger."

There was silence for a few seconds, after which the Commander spoke. "Acknowledged. Diaz, Ross, continue on."

"Am I supposed to drag him there myself?" Bos asked, annoyed. "You've never been in combat before, have you?"

The Commander paused again before replying. "The pilot will assist you. Keep moving. Further commands will be issued as necessary."

"Anna, just go with it," Ross said over the radio. "This guy's scary enough when he's calm. Just imagine what would happen if he was angry."

Bos gritted her teeth and threw Sanchez's arm over her shoulder. Together, they struggled to their feet. Bos drew her pistol, keeping an eye on her surroundings. Over the next minute or so, they walked slowly back to the Skyranger. Bos was convinced that another alien freak would emerge from the shadows at any moment, but none appeared.

Diaz tapped Ross on the shoulder. "Come on, they'll be fine. Big Sky's got 'em covered." She pointed to where the Skyranger's pilot had exited through the rear ramp, holding a pistol in a manner that strongly suggested it had been a long time since he fired it.

Ross frowned, but he gestured for Diaz to continue ahead. She advanced through the spreading blackness. The Scottish sniper clambered up a series of metal rungs on the back of a nearby bus, giving him a good view of the battlefield. He gave another gesture, and Diaz scurried forward to the nearest cover, another parked car. They had reached the other side of the square. There were three lanes of abandoned traffic, with some roadworks scattered nearby. Some orange signs, traffic cones and-

Three men in suits. They all looked the same, strange silver and green rifles in hand. "Diaz," Ross said softly. "Three bogies, 2 o'clock. Haven't seen you yet."

"Gotcha," she whispered. She tugged a frag grenade from her belt and pulled the pin. She tossed it through the air. It landed, rolling forward a few feet to end up in the middle of the group. The thin men immediately whipped their heads around to look at the object, turning just in time to get a faceful of jagged metal. The aliens fell to the ground in a large cloud of poisonous vapour.

Diaz pumped her fist quietly. "Awesome," she said. "Any others?"

Ross scanned the area. "No hostiles sighted."

"You are cleared to advance," the Commander said, sounding vaguely impressed through the vocal modulators.

Diaz made her way forward, between the cars, towards the roadworks. There was a forklift, a couple of ubiquitous orange traffic cones. She frowned. She could hear rapid breathing coming from somewhere around the roadworks, as if their source was having a panic attack. She took shelter behind one of the cars and aimed her shotgun at the roadworks. "Is someone there?" she said loudly.

The breathing stopped, then started again more softly. "Ms. Sing?" Diaz said. "Are you there?"

There was a soft whimpering sound. "Ms. Sing?" she repeated. "It's okay. I'm here to help."

Sing poked her head out from behind the forklift, but ducked back in again. "I'm not going back!" she cried. "Don't take me back there..."

Diaz took off her helmet and left it on the ground. "Please, Ms. Sing. Anna. I'm not one of them."

Sing looked out again, and this time seemed to believe her. "You're a soldier? Please, get me out of here." Tears in her eyes, the Asian woman scuttled out from behind the forklift and next to Diaz. She was hunched over, glancing around nervously.

"Put this on," Diaz said, handing her helmet to Sing. "You need it more than I do." Sing slipped the helmet onto her head. "Just take me away from here," she said in reply.

"Hold on," Ross said over the radio. "Might have movement, somewhere on your right-"  
>Ross was cut off suddenly. Diaz squinted into the darkness, and was just about able to see two struggling figures on top of the bus. "Cameron Ross!" the Commander said. "Status!"<p>

There was a hissing sound over the radio, then a wet, meaty thud. "Mother!" Ross shouted, followed by another thud. "Fucker!" There was a noise like a wet balloon deflating, and Ross jumped down from his perch on the bus. "I'm alright, but I messed up my rifle bashing that one's head in," he reported. "I'm down to my pistol, and there's three hostiles ahead."

Diaz ran forward to the nearest car, with Sing following in her wake. "Stay close to me!" Diaz warned. Ross had hunkered down behind the bus, and was fitting the S.C.O.P.E. from his sniper rifle to his pistol. He fired a shot, hitting on of the enemies in the leg. Plasma splashed near his feet in response. "Do you know how many of them there are?" Diaz asked.

Anna thought quickly. The one with the red tie, the scarred one, the scaled pair...

"Six, I think," she said. Diaz nodded. "We've killed two, and we can see three. That means-"

The Argentinian saw movement in the shadows behind Sing, and fired just as the alien pounced. The shot ripped away part of its suit and upper torso, but it was still moving. It delivered a punch to Diaz's head that left her dazed and drew its plasma weapon. The sunglasses had fallen from its face, exposing its almost luminescent green eyes.

Full of adrenaline, Anna did the only thing she could. She dived at the thin man before it could fire, the helmet Diaz had given her smashing into its face. It screamed, and she ignored her fear and headbutted it again. It stopped struggling just long enough for Diaz to put a bullet from her pistol through its head. The sound rang out, ending the adrenaline rush and returning Anna to reality. She sucked in a long, shuddering breath.

Diaz took the helmet from her again. "I owe you one, but stay here. These three should be the last of them." She sprinted to Ross' side, and the bark of her shotgun mixed with the hissing of the aliens and the cough of Ross' pistol. Anna sat very still, waiting for it to end.

~

The Skyranger had room for a dozen people. Anna huddled in the corner by herself, refusing to talk to anyone. Not long after they took off, she fell asleep from sheer fatigue.

"Can't say I blame her," Bos said. "She must have been going for, what, thirty hours straight?"

"I wonder what she knows," Ross said. "About the aliens, about their strategies. We've got a hell of an advantage."

~

The clean-up crews arrived back not long afterwards, carrying every scrap of alien weaponry and bodies they could find. The remains, as ever, were brought to the science labs.

Vahlen stood over the most intact body. They were calling them Thin Men. An infiltrator, one modified to look like a human? The extent of the surgery required was mind-boggling. It bore no resemblance to the Sectoids they had already encountered.

"At least," she muttered, "it doesn't on the outside..."

Her assistant strolled up to her. "Anything to report, Dmitri?" she asked.

"We've had a breakthrough with the Sectoid cranial implants," he said with a grin. "Each node is some kind of accuracy enhancement, based on data received from other connected nodes."

Vahlen nodded. "I'm sure we'll find a way to use that. Now, I want us to properly take a look at that power source from the alien craft."

~

"Is this going to happen every time I approach a civilian?" Sanchez said, to no-one in particular. He was sitting up in his bed in the medical wing. His throat ached terribly.

"You were naturally allergic to some of the compounds in the alien poison," Vahlen explained. "The rest of your team shouldn't have quite such a severe reaction, although they should of course avoid breathing it in."

"How long will I be out for?"

"Perhaps another week, perhaps two. It's difficult to say."

A voice sounded over the intercom. "Dr. Vahlen to the research labs. Dr. Vahlen to the research labs."

"You must excuse me, Sanchez," Vahlen said with a smile. "I'm late for a very important date."

~

"You want to capture one of these things... alive?" Bradford asked, incredulous.

"We've learned as much as we can from their battered corpses, Bradford," Vahlen said. She had asked him down to the science labs to discuss a proposal. It had not been what Bradford was expecting. The labs had been temporarily cleared of technicians for this discussion. Only Vahlen, Shen and Bradford stood around one of the clinical white tables.

She gestured to schematics on a screen, where a cross-section of a Sectoid was displayed. Its nerves were highlighted in blue, a shimmering network spread throughout the compartments of its body.

"The alien's nervous system is quite similar to that of a human," Vahlen explained. "I believe that, if we deliver a concentrated electric shock from close range, we can stun one of the Sectoids and return it to HQ unharmed."

"Close range?" Bradford said. "You expect our soldiers to risk their lives for this?"

"They already risk their lives, Officer," Shen said. "Capturing one of the enemy is the only way we can learn more about them. If you can knock it out, Vahlen, I can create a chamber to contain it."

"I still don't like this," Bradford said. "I'll run it past the Commander first, see what he says. Don't get your hopes up." He walked away, into the elevator that led to the Situation Room.

Vahlen raised an eyebrow when he had gone. "Shen, to be frank, I didn't expect your support in this endeavour," she said.

"We need to take one alive," Shen replied. "I'm confident that that's the only way we can advance."

They talked on late into the night, thinking of containment systems and interrogation mechanisms. Vahlen had such an aptitude for torture devices that, when Shen eventually settled down into bed, he could not sleep.

_Are we doing the right thing?_ he wondered. _Isn't there another way?_


	6. Patient Hymn

Anna Sing woke up in an unfamiliar room. It almost looked like an apartment. There was a bed in the corner, a small en-suite bathroom, and a table with two chairs in the centre. An air conditioner hummed softly overhead. In fact. the only thing out of the ordinary about the room was the lack of windows.

Anna shook her head. She was still jumpy after so many hours of running and hiding. Feeling... well, feeling safe felt weird.

A woman entered through the door, a door that blended in almost perfectly with the wall. She wore a white lab coat, stained slightly green in places, and she carried a clipboard. "Ms. Sing?" she asked. "Please take a seat," she said, gesturing to the table. Anna did as she asked, warily.

"There's no need to be afraid," the stranger said, sitting down across from her. "You're safe here."

"Where am I?"

"That's classified."

"Who are you?"

"Ms. Sing, you do not have the clearance to know anything about this organisation," the woman said. She leaned forward onto the table and folded her arms. "Whether or not that will change depends on how this interview goes."

She clicked a pen and held it over her clipboard, ready to write. "Name?"

Anna was taken aback. "My name? But... you know it already."

"It's a formality. Name?"

"Anna Sing."

They talked for a full hour. She answered questions on her background, on her personality, and on even the smallest details of her abduction. Anna could feel a headache starting to throb in the back of her skull.

The woman's watch beeped. "That's all for today," she said, standing up.

"Today?" Anna asked, leaping out of her chair. "You're not releasing me?"

"You're too valuable to us for that to happen," the woman explained on her way out of the door. "You know too much."

The door closed with a click, and Anna knew it had been locked. She didn't bother trying to open it or screaming for her freedom. She was too emotionally drained from her ordeal to even cry. She laid down on the uncomfortable bed. It wasn't long before sleep came, and with it a peaceful oblivion.

~

"Fascinating," Vahlen said, gazing at the alien power generator. It was a rough cylinder of metal two and a half metres tall, lit from within by an eerie green glow. This relatively small device had provided enough power for an entire alien ship to remain aloft, unburdened by gravity. The lead engineer was currently digging through the guts of the device.

"Do you have anything to report, Doctor Shen?" she asked. The workshops were not her favourite place to be in XCOM's headquarters, but her limited team of scientists had no-one with knowledge of such a device. She stood in one of the side-chambers of the workshop, away from the activity of the conveyor belts and robotic arms.

The engineer, an aged Asian man, straightened up and brushed himself off. His overalls were covered in oil and grease stains. "So far as I can tell, Doctor, it's harmless. Nothing any more radioactive than normal background levels you'd expect for a high-altitude craft."

He waved an arm, inviting Vahlen to step up onto the platform he was standing on. She nervously took his hand and joined him. She could now see into the core of the machine, where a luminescent cluster of bright green crystals floated in the air, rotating slowly.

"And this isn't radioactive?"

"Not at the moment. It's suspended by the same gravity manipulation we saw on the UFO. It seems to hold back the gamma radiation from the crystals. There are banks of instruments up there." Shen pointed to some iridescent lumps in the shell of the generator. "They were quite useful in analysing the device. The core requires no fuel whatsoever. From readings we took while it was still active, it just emits energy at a steady rate, with no loss of mass or emission of waste. It's more efficient than a fusion reactor, but can only put out so much power per second."

"More efficient than fusion?" Vahlen said, frowning. Particle physics was not her strong point, but she had dabbled in a number of scientific fields. "But that would imply matter-antimatter annihilation, or something similarly powerful..."

Shen nodded. "It's all Greek to me, I'm afraid. I don't think we have anyone on staff who can figure this one out at the moment. However, I can draw up plans for a larger version. We can't afford it right now, but in the future..."

"It's a possibility," Vahlen said, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

~

Sanchez jogged on the treadmill, panting for breath. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the ground of the fitness centre in the barracks. The alien bioweapon he had breathed in had damaged his lungs, leaving him gasping after exercises that he could formerly have done without breaking a sweat.

He stopped, barely able to breathe. His comrade, Cameron Ross, glanced over from his treadmill. "Everything alright?"

"I'll be fine," Sanchez spluttered. "Just a minute..."

"Nah, you won't. Give it a rest for a while, you mad bastard." This last remark was emphasised with a playful punch to Sanchez's shoulder.

Sanchez nodded. "I'll be back soon."

Behind them, Diaz threw blows into a punching bag along with a rookie. Sanchez sat heavily on the bench near them, mopping his brow with a cloth. The fact that he wasn't as good as he used to be was understandable. He was forty-two, after all. But being this unfit was not a familiar situation. It didn't sit well with him.

"Want to join in, Fern?" Diaz asked, taking her eyes from her target for the first time that morning. She paused for a minute to breathe, unwinding the wrappings from her hands. A jogger (Kim Evans, the American recruit, Sanchez reckoned) ran past them.

"Not a chance," Sanchez said with a smirk. "I'm here to chat with the new guys."

The Commander had decided to hire some more of the best soldiers that the Council members could offer. New recruits would be an important element of the initiative. Three had recently arrived.

"What's your name, kid?" he asked. The man he addressed looked over. He was dark-skinned, with the build of a boxer. The look in his eyes reminded Sanchez of a bulldog; tough, but not necessarily vicious. "Roberts," he said. "Adam Roberts."

"Your accent," Sanchez said, mulling it over in his head. "British, yes. Manchester?"

Adam smiled. "Right on the money. Born and raised a Red Devil. I hear you're the expert in LMGs around here?"

Sanchez tilted his head to the side. "I wouldn't say expert. You learn quickly when you're in the field."

"Against ET." Roberts gave a deep laugh. "I still can't quite believe it. Little grey men."

"They're real," Bos said next to him. She was deep in thought, meditating on the ground. She didn't open her eyes. "Don't make light of them. They're the greatest threat our species has ever faced."

"God, I bet you're real fun at parties," Roberts said with a roll of his eyes.

The intercoms spoke, drowning out the start of Bos' reply. "Xenia Diaz, Anna Bos, Dirk de Graaf, Adam Roberts to the Skyranger," they droned, before repeating their message.

Sanchez shook his head. "I guess they've noticed I'm still not ready for another go." He snapped a quick salute at Roberts. "Good luck out there."

Adam returned the salute. "I'll give 'em hell for you."

~

"This is Central, I'm receiving you." Bradford listened to the report from the field agent. "What do you mean you think you saw a snake? What the hell does that have to do with anything?" he shouted. "If you give me this crap one more time, you're right back to floor-mopping."

Bradford leaned back into his office chair in Mission Control and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Around him, half a dozen more personnel dealt with sketchy reports and shaky camera footage of aliens. Nine times out of ten, it was absolutely nothing, but if they missed even one actual report, dozens of people could pay the price.

"Sir!" one of the comms officers shouted. "We're getting something from Italy!"

"Good work, Chulski!" Bradford shouted. No matter how bad things got, he prided himself on never forgetting a name. "Get that feed on screen!"

The footage, straight from YouTube, was projected in front of the hologlobe. It showed a shaking view of a Florentine street, all tan arches and small windows. The sky above them was lit up by a dozen shining lights. A drop-pod, glowing with the heat of its descent, slammed into the side of a building ahead, shaking the ground. Bulky shapes emerged from the smoke, but the recorder was turning and fleeing.

More alerts popped up, one by one, across the globe. Another wave of alien drop-pods falling from the sky over Bloemfontein. A wave of strange sightings and disappearances in Canberra. Panic in the streets of Florence. The Council called for aid, and XCOM were the only ones that could help.

Bradford sprinted from Mission Control and took the short elevator trip to the Situation Room. It took only thirty seconds, but the trip felt like hours. By the time Bradford had entered the room, the Commander had already taken his place behind the desk and was reviewing the reports. He was his usual dark silhouette, studying computer monitors filled with information on the attacks.

"Another three choices. Two more missed chances to help," the Commander sighed. Bradford found himself worrying about the pressure the man was under. Making these decisions couldn't be easy.

"Don't worry about me, Bradford," the Commander said, distracting Bradford from his train of thought. "I wouldn't be doing this job if the Council didn't think I could take the stress."

"How did you know I-"

"I'm good at reading people." There was a short pause. "Has there been any progress with the captive?" the figure asked suddenly. Bradford reckoned he must be buying time to think about their options.

"Ah, no, Commander," he said. "She's being cooperative, but we just aren't learning anything new from her. It's quite likely she doesn't know anything else. What should we do with her?"

"Retain her," he replied. "If we let her go, the world would only panic more when they hear what she saw. We'll head to South Africa," he decided, changing the subject again. "We have to spread our missions around the world. If we ignore any one region for too long, they'll panic."

Bradford nodded and made to leave, mentally preparing himself to deal with the representatives of the Council members they hadn't aided. No matter how often he explained that XCOM couldn't be everywhere at once, they never understood.

The things that Sing had seen, though... They burned in the back of his mind. The creatures that she'd seen would be unpleasant to deal with.

But, he thought, we're going to have to deal with them, sooner or later.

~

"What are we in for, Sweaters?" Diaz asked, as the team sat in the Skyranger.

Bradford tried to ignore her latest nickname for him. "We're looking at three more attacks. Alien forces appear to be abducting civilians again, though for what I don't like to think."

"Maybe they like how we taste?" Roberts suggested. Everyone in the Skyranger stared at him silently. "What? It's definitely an option."

"Unfortunately," Diaz said, "it is a possibility."

"No way," de Graaf replied. He was a short, balding man, brought on this mission due to his South African heritage. "They come God only knows how far just to eat us? Impossible. There's no logic in it."

"People aren't always logical," Roberts added. "It could be some cultural thing. A tradition. Find a planet, see how the people taste, then start rounding them up."

"Bradford?" Bos interrupted, folding her arms across her chest. "The mission briefing?"

"As I was saying," Bradford said, "we're dropping you into Bloemfontein in South Africa for the next operation. We've received reports that don't match any aliens we know of. Be ready."

~

It was the middle of the morning in Bloemfontein. The Skyranger touched down in the middle of the sun-drenched street. The rear ramp opened onto the scorched, cracked pavement, and the strike team exited, scanning for any sign of the hostiles. Diaz took point. As the soldier with most combat experience against the enemy, she had been chosen for this mission.

The enemy was not immediately visible, but their technology was. Their drop-pods had landed in several locations along the street, tearing apart the ground and destroying cars. One had demolished a graffiti-stained wall, leaving a pile of colourful rubble and red brick dust. Others, as they had seen from the air, had come down on top of buildings, and in a few cases had smashed through their roofs.

"This place must have been chaos half an hour ago," Roberts said. "Where is everyone?"

Bos pointed silently to the entangled green bodies that surrounded the drop-pods. The ones that XCOM had recovered from the first abductions had taken some time to reawaken. The coating, it seemed, was also a powerful sedative.

"Hold up," Diaz said. There was something strange in front of them. It had landed next to a lamp-post, on the corner of the street, not far from where the Skyranger had touched down. It resembled the other pods, with a metallic silver coating and a similar shape. It differed in that the top half rotated constantly, spinning around despite the lack of any visible support. A faint orange mist swirled from under the top half, dissipating quickly into the air.

"That object is different from the others," Vahlen said, stating the obvious. "It does not appear to be the same type of "pod" that we've seen used by the aliens during their abduction operations. We may gain new insights if we recover it."

"And how do you plan on doing that?" Roberts said. "We haven't got a clue what the hell it is. Could be a bomb."

The Commander's voice echoed through the radio. "Investigate the device."

"You're up, de Graaf!" Diaz said. Dirk obediently ran forward, taking cover behind the device. It did not respond to his presence.

Doctor Shen reported in, observing through the cameras in the soldier's armour. "This appears to be a containment device of some kind. We can only assume it has an internal self-destruct mechanism like the other alien equipment. We need to deactivate it."

"How do I do that?" de Graaf asked.

"There appears to be a button on the side."

Dirk looked at the side of the device, found the circular button, and pressed it with his fist before leaping back. The device's lid spilt into four pieces, which settled neatly into slots on its sides. An orange pillar, glowing brightly, emerged from the container with a flare of orange mist.

"Until we can ascertain if that substance is toxic, stay away from it," Bradford warned.

Vahlen seemed to happily ignore him, and continued. "There may be additional canisters like this one in the area. The more we can recover, the more we'll learn about what's inside them."

"Any others you find may have operational self-destruct modules," Shen interrupted. "Be careful."

"Acknowledged," Diaz said. She considered her options. Directly in front of them was a diner of some sort, while the roads stretched off on both sides. "Left," she decided, sending her squad into cover behind the abandoned trucks and cars on the road. They moved forward, the Commander's voice occasionally ordering them to pause or take a different path.

"I think I've got something," Bos reported. She had advanced furthest, and was sheltering behind a light blue hatchback. She squinted at it down the sights of her rifle. "Diaz, I've found another canister over here," she reported. It had landed next to a shop, and broken glass littered the ground from its window-shattering descent.

"Got it," Diaz said. "Bos, de Graaf, you take care of it. Roberts and I will head through this restaurant."

Diaz felt rather proud of herself. She'd never actually given orders before, but between Sanchez and the Commander, she had no shortage of people to learn from. She and Roberts peered through the windows of the diner. The place was deserted; it would have been reasonably early in the morning here when they attacked.

"See anything?" she asked Roberts.

"Nothing," he replied. Diaz opened the door quietly and slipped inside. The wooden floor in the diner creaked under her feet. "No activity," she reported to the rest of the squad.

Bos moved towards the object, hunkering down behind the tables and chairs outside an ice cream parlour, which was next to the diner that Roberts and Diaz were exploring. She motioned for de Graaf to advance to the object, and he did so. As he searched for the button on this device, Bos heard a faint sound in the distance. She looked into the deserted ice-cream parlour. "What was-"

It seemed to happen in slow-motion. A hulk of twisted flesh and blackened metal, screaming at the top of its lungs while engines roared and belched flame, hurtled down from above in an arc. It knocked de Graaf off his feet and grabbed him by the ankle. Bos fired desperately as it soared into the air, carrying the helpless soldier with it.

It stopped ascending and floated in the air, giving Bos a proper look at it. It was a greyish-brown alien, face covered by a breathing mask. It had no legs whatsoever; there was nothing from the waist down. From the back, there sprouted a pair of what looked like jet engines, pouring out smoke and fire as they kept the monster aloft. Worst of all were the eyes; they were tiny and reddish, maddened and tormented by pain.

It looked at the struggling de Graaf. He had dropped his rifle in a panic, and was trying to reach his pistol. The alien held a shining silver rifle in its other hand, and it calmly fired it at the soldier. Dirk de Graaf screamed as the superheated gas ate away at his face and upper torso, armour melting away in rivers, skin peeling and turning black.

Bos ignored her horror and sent a stream of bullets into the creature's shoulder. It bellowed in pain, and seemed to notice her. It looked directly at her with those insane eyes, and dropped de Graaf. He hit the ground with a crunch, and Bos knew instinctively he wouldn't be getting back up. The alien was joined by another two just like it, jerking through the air on columns of black smoke. They made a harsh, throaty sound that Bos could tell was laughter.

"Hostiles!" Bos shouted into the mike as she sprinted to better cover. A hail of plasma fire impacted behind her as she ran. "I need backup!"

Diaz and Roberts moved like lightning through the diner. Roberts kicked open the door at the back, hoping to move around through the alleyways and flank the aliens. He ran through the door, followed by Diaz, only for both of them to screech to a halt upon seeing the small pack of Sectoids clustered around an unconscious civilian.

The simian aliens noticed them immediately. Diaz reflexively fired her shotgun when she saw them, blowing the legs of one Sectoid out from under it. The other three aliens scuttled into cover behind corners and dumpsters.

"To hell with this!" Roberts yelled. He tugged a grenade from his belt and pulled the pin. It whistled softly through the air as he threw it towards the aliens. The Sectoids scurried away when they saw the grenade. It exploded in a fiery blast that shook the ground, but hit none of them.

"Crap," Roberts said, huddled next to Diaz as plasma from the enemy's pistols rained down around their cover, an old dumpster. "They're learning."

Diaz poked her head out slightly. One of the Sectoids was hiding behind a wooden shipping crate. It didn't seem like very good cover.

"Backup! Now!" Bos shouted in her ear.

"We'll be there soon!" Diaz roared back. She pointed out the alien's flimsy shelter to Roberts. He gave a grin and hefted his LMG into position, before turning it into a pile of wooden splinters with a hail of lead. The Sectoid was killed quickly, perforated in a dozen places.

The remaining Sectoids did their fancy trick again. Purple light flowed from the head of one to the other, who seemed invigorated by the psychic ability. The source scrabbled away on all fours, while the other one remained behind. Diaz saw her chance, and jumped out from cover. Operating on instinct, she dodged to one side slightly before the plasma bolt could hit her. She fired her shotgun once, shredding the Sectoid's torso into a greenish pulp.

Roberts advanced behind her, eyes alert for any sign of the remaining Sectoid. He rounded the corner, scanning the area. He felt it before he could see it, a terrible burning feeling in his side and the hiss of scorched flesh. He spun around and fired, and was rewarded with a dying scream from the last Sectoid.

"Roberts, how bad is it?" Diaz asked, hurrying over.

"Not bad," he said through gritted teeth. He collapsed against the wall of the building. "Been worse. Keep going. I'll get the canister."

Diaz moved at a dead sprint, kicking open the back door of the ice-cream parlour, dodging an overturned table, and vaulting through the broken window to arrive near Bos' location. The new aliens had elected to hide behind vehicles on the street, just as Bos had. As Diaz watched, one of them soared above cover for an instant. Bos took its arm off in a hail of bullets, and it sank back to the ground, shrieking and trailing lime-green fluid.

"Reloading!" Bos shouted, and Diaz saw her chance. The aliens hadn't seen her. Diaz took her grenade from her belt, tugged out the pin, and rolled it along the ground. It came to rest under the van that two of these aliens were huddled behind. The grenade detonated in a storm of flames, sending shrapnel and pieces of van whizzing through their bodies. The aliens were blown apart or exploded where they stood, the shards hitting something vital in their engines.

Diaz shook her head briefly, her ears ringing from the explosion, and surveyed the street. There was only a single alien left. It was crippled, broken by the force of the blast. Its engines flared irregularly as it crawled towards her, its weapon destroyed or forgotten. It still snarled in pain and madness.

Bos calmly walked over and shot it in the head. Then, she did the same for each of the others, just to make absolutely certain. When she had finished, she looked at Diaz.

"Roberts?" she asked, her face not betraying any emotion.

In response, Diaz glanced to her right. Roberts had staggered up to the container and pressed the button, deactivating it. Now, he had slid to the ground against it. He saw them and waved half-heartedly.

"And Dirk?" Diaz asked.

Bos didn't reply, but began to walk over to Roberts. Diaz signalled the all-clear to command, and overhead, she could hear the drone of the approaching clean-up crew in their helicopters. She spoke into the radio reluctantly.

"Soldier down. Repeat, Dirk de Graaf confirmed as K.I.A."

~

Anna lay on the bed. It was the fifth day of her captivity. Her new captivity: by humans, not by aliens, though she had started to wonder if she had been better off with the extraterrestrials. Every day, one scientist or another came in, asking her the same questions over and over, hoping for some tiny scrap of information about those damn aliens.

This time, it was different. A man she hadn't seen before, wearing a thick sweater with a strange symbol on it. He sat down in the chair nearest the door, the same place the scientists always sat.

"I've told you everything I know," Anna said, not even bothering to open her eyes. "Either let me out, or let me rot in peace. No more questions."

"That's not why I'm here, Ms. Sing," the scientist said. He sounded vaguely American. "You can ask the questions."

Anna opened one eye slightly, not really believing him. "Fine. Who are you?"

"My name is Central Officer Bradford."

"Where am I?"

"Several hundred metres under Bavaria in Germany."

"Smartass. What is this place?"

"The headquarters of an organisation named XCOM, devoted to fighting against the aliens."

That got Anna's attention, and she sat up on her bed. "I assumed you were some Men In Black-style group." She paused. "You aren't doing a great job of it, are you?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Because you're losing. I read the papers in Salvador, even though I can't speak Brazilian. I understood enough. Los Angeles is on fire. There are twenty dead and twice that missing in Lyon. Probably there've been even more attacks since I got here, am I right? I can tell from your face that I am. Why aren't you helping?"

Bradford stood up. "We are!" He shouted. "Everywhere we can, we've sent soldiers. Innocent men and women, giving their lives for scraps of metal and piles of corpses!"

The man looked exhausted suddenly, and Anna felt a sudden wave of pity. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Nothing but metal and corpses," he murmured.

"Why haven't you let me out?" Anna asked.

"Anna, sometimes, we are cold. We have to calculate where we can save, where we have to let people die. We weigh up whether we can let an innocent woman free, or whether it is better to keep what she knows from the world." He looked at Anna with eyes that had seen too much. "We have to do this to survive. But we're cold, not cruel. You will be let out again, someday. I promise you."

~

Diaz sat in the medbay, next to Roberts. He had received some severe burns to his side, but he was recovering quickly. Bos was with them, pacing back and forth.

"How are you holding up?" Bos said. "The burns seemed pretty bad."

"I'll be fine," Roberts said. "I can't get up now, but I'll be right as rain before you know it."

"Those things," Diaz said. "What they did to de Graaf. I..."

"They enjoyed it," Roberts spat. "We saw the footage from your helmet, Bos. Those bastards laughed."

Bos shook her head. "I don't let it get to me. We're going to lose more people before this war is over. We need to stay strong."

"That's a pessimistic attitude," Diaz said.

"I'm realistic. There's a difference."

Roberts shook his head. "You've got to mourn. If we don't... well, we're no better than them, are we? We're human, and they ain't."

~

Later that day, Sanchez showed Diaz the memorial wall he'd set up. The pictures were still pinned to the wall, not far from the cafeteria. The candles still burned below them. Sanchez kept them lit and had new ones ordered in as necessary.

"I didn't know them," Diaz said, her hand brushing against the picture of Murakami. "I wasn't recruited until afterwards."

"I know," Sanchez said. "Losing a soldier is always difficult, especially when we need all the support we can get. Is there anything you want to add?"

Diaz took out a picture of Dirk. It was him last week, just after they'd recovered the alien abductee. It showed him mixing up a cocktail for the rookies in the bar. Everyone was laughing and joking, and Diaz could still remember the electric thrill of excitement in the air.

Diaz pinned the picture to the wall. Sanchez offered her a lighter, and she used it to light another one of the thick, white-waxed candles. She placed it beneath the picture. Both soldiers simply looked at the wall for a while, as a fourth ghost joined the other three.

~

"A curious substance," Shivali Chaudhry said. "I wonder..."

Doctor Chaudhry, XCOM's resident specialist in materials science, had been analysing the mysterious canister they had retrieved from the field. The metal container had folded open like origami, revealing a smaller cylinder of hexagonal cross-section. It was defying attempts at analysis. It didn't rate on the Moh hardness scale, because they couldn't find a way to scratch it; it seemed bizarrely light when they measured its density; and the attempt at taking a sample had revealed that it self-repaired.

Chaudhry laid the cylinder down on the desk and tried to imagine what it could be used for. It wouldn't be a useful building material, it didn't seem to be in any way edible...

"Wait," she murmured. "We haven't checked how well it conducts electricity..."

She used a pair of clamps to connect wires to the artifact, humming all the while. She soon had instruments connected into the circuit, and hooked the entire thing into a transformer leading into the base's power supply. The apparatus was safely encased in a secure testing chamber, just in case.

"This is Doctor Chaudhry," she said, her voice muffled by the hazmat suit she had donned just in case, "conducting a test of the artifact's electrical resistance. Test one, commencing."

She flicked the switch, and there was a brief, intense flash of light. When Chaudhry could see again, the artifact was gone. The interior of the testing chamber was completely covered in a thin layer of orange liquid, which even as she watched was dripping onto the floor.

"Eureka!" she cried. "I've always wanted to say that." She tore off the helmet of the hazmat suit and rushed away to inform Doctor Vahlen.

A silver hexagon drifted in an orange liquid. A yellow light flashed at the centre, surrounded by a crimson substance. Without warning, three yellow points emerged from the sides, turning the shape into a triangle. The points crackled with electricity, which jumped between the vertices in brief flashes. Bradford had no idea what he was looking at.

"So... what is it, Doctor?" Bradford said.

"It's... remarkable," Vahlen said, her voice filled with awe. "The crystalline structure housed within the canister is actually a suspension - containing billions of cybernetic nanomachines, each made up of both organic and mechanical components."

Doctor Shen frowned at her. He seemed to disapprove of excitement for any reason. "My team's analysis indicates these microscopic robots are capable of assembling mechanical structures with unprecedented efficiency."

He gestured to a monitor on the wall, which showed the nanites assembling themselves into structures, bridges that crackled with electricity. "As Doctor Chaudhry has discovered, they respond to electric currents. With further study - and some specialised facilities - we may be able to engineer a sort of "cybersuit" that interfaces with the human body.

Vahlen glared back at him, clutching her tablet to her chest. "_My_ team is more interested in the possibility of physically altering the tissue itself, incorporating aspects of the aliens' own genetic adaptations, by using the nanites to "fuse" the foreign material." A similar monitor showed two digital models of different living tissues, connected by chains of nanites.

"It will not work," Shen cried. "The alien material is too distinct from our own. You'll never-"

"And remind me of your project?" Vahlen asked. "It has been mere hours since we encountered a horrible cybernetic monster, and you already want to build monsters of our own?"

Shen looked genuinely hurt by that remark, so Bradford decided to step in before things escalated. "The Commander will have to decide where the greatest advantage lies. Is there anything you two agree on?"

Vahlen and Shen glared at each other, but the German doctor continued. "Given the apparent purpose of the nanites - to allow combining organic materials with one another, or with machines - we have at least agreed to call them..."

"MELD," Shen said, somewhat reluctantly. "Miniaturised Enhancement/Linkage Drones. A product of Vahlen's penchant for acronyms. Now, I really must attend to my team."

"I have a dissection to perform," Vahlen said. Both of them quickly left the room, leaving Bradford alone.

"MELD," Bradford repeated. He walked slowly out of the labs, mind buzzing with the possibilities, and thought of the future.


End file.
